This map by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre examines the travel times from any spot on the globe to the nearest city of 50,000 or more inhabitants by land or water. The surprise?

As NewScientist observes, less than 10% of the world is more than two days away from a major city using ground-based travel. That stat only jumps to 20% when scaled to the Amazon, where river and expanding road networks have made even jungle terrain semi-assessable.

Also, nobody fucks with the cold climates.

On one hand, the map is a testament to human advancement and expansion. On the other, well, there are a buncha roads in what was once pristine jungle. (Yeah, I saw Avatar twice.) [Flickr and NewScientist via Neatorama]